Permission to Play
My generation, millennials, grew up outside getting our knees scraped and getting into questionable situations, but we’re still functioning adults(-ish).
We are the generation between “no internet” and “internet”. I still remember my very first cell phone, Alcatel One Touch Easy, that I couldn’t use because it was too expensive to get credit on it but I was “cool” like that.
I grew up with cassette tapes and the Summer Hits were the most sought out and game consoles that used cartridges. Most of all, I grew up spending most of my time in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I was out there socializing and making amazing memories, but I was trying very hard to belong, to fit in. For some reason, I was different; had different music taste, different opinions, different values. In high school, while my classmates gravitated towards the popular trends, I discovered anime, fell in love with the Japanese language, and found my way into J-rock. That made me stand out, to say the least. So for most of my life I did my best to be like everybody else.
Fast forward to my 30s. I started therapy at 30 years old after I relocated back to Timisoara and brought a whole baggage of trauma and emotional damage with me, because I am an authentic millennial.
One noteworthy moment in my healing journey was when I bought a second hand Playstation 4. Some of my friends had one and they were telling me about Detroit Become Human and I was quite mesmerized by the level of detail my friend shared with me and her excitement was contagious. One of the Youtube channels I follow had a series where they played Detroit Become Human. And I was blown away; by the story, by the graphics, by the complexity of the game. And I wanted to play it too.
My very first thought was “I will not spend money on games, I’m an adult”. But months later, I was still thinking about the game, so much so that I mentioned the whole experience to my therapist as a “Look at me and my childish thoughts haha”. And my therapist, instead of agreeing that it was just a childish impulse, actually went full therapist mode on me. Her first question was simply: "What would happen if you bought a console?" And just like that, my brain stopped. From there, we started peeling back all the reasons I was holding myself back - and slowly I realized that none of them were actually mine. They were my mother's, inherited from a childhood where money was carefully managed and fun was always the last priority." That “insignificant experience” as I called it, ended up changing my life in a very significant way.
I decided to be smart about this, and I went with a second hand Playstation 4 because I was afraid that this might be just a temporary thing, an itch to be scratched. Well, let me tell you it wasn't! After a year of gaming, I got myself the Playstation 5 and gifted the other one to my brother as a Christmas gift.
When I first got home with the PS4, I was incredibly happy. The feeling when I got home with that PS4? Pure Christmas morning energy.
There were two big emotions present in my body that evening; one of pure innocent joy and one of fierce possessiveness. My inner child was finally let out to play and the adult version of me was ready to defend and protect that joy.
I was getting exposed to so many parts of myself that I shunned in order to be liked and accepted and now, finally, I was being free.
I learned so much about myself playing video games and it helped me tremendously in my therapy. I rewired parts of my brain one video game at the time. What surprised me the most was realizing that all this time, while I was just having fun, I was actually building skills without even knowing it. Here are a few core ones that gaming can develop:
Strategic thinking - planning, resource management, long-term consequences
Problem-solving - puzzles, adapting tactics, trial and error
Resilience - failing repeatedly, learning from mistakes, persistence
Teamwork - raid coordination, communication, reading teammates
Pattern recognition - seeing trends, predicting outcomes
Decision-making under pressure - split-second choices, risk assessment
Goal-setting - breaking big objectives into smaller quests
Time management - balancing dailies, events, real life
Creativity - building, customization, strategy creation
Emotional regulation - managing frustration, staying calm in PvP
Research skills - reading wikis, theory crafting, optimizing builds
Community building - guilds, Discord servers, leading groups
Spatial awareness - navigation, map reading, positioning
Hand-eye coordination - reaction time, precision
Narrative comprehension - following complex stories, connecting lore
These are all necessary skills in life that we can develop by having fun. Since I started gaming, I have been mind blown by the amount of talent this community has. Keep in mind, I am a 37 years old millennial who played The Addams Family on cartridge, I might be easily impressed when it comes to gaming. There were many times when I got stuck on a puzzle or a skill I couldn't perform quite right - the kind of things that aren't immediately obvious and only click after time and experience. Like many others, I turned to the internet for help. While I did find the help that I needed I also found specific communities that picked my curiosities. One of them is the speedrunning community. I was so amazed by the fact that such a community existed, that people were so incredibly skilled and that other players were helping by improving the routes with all sorts of shortcuts and specific movement to bypass an area that is depended on a skill to be acquired, in order to help the runners make better time. The level of thought, dedication, tactic and skill is something that for me brings back some hope for humanity.
Any creative outlet can be used in your own personal journey, whether you're young and still in the tutorial phase of life or if you're a veteran that wants a change. That small hobby or skill that you have tucked away behind the responsible adult, that makes you smile, keeps you sane and brings joy, can be integrated into your life.
We all look for our purpose in life and I think we are a step closer to finding it out by allowing all the parts of ourselves to burn bright.
